Photos of China

I went on tour with an orchestra in China over New Year. Had an amazing time, although as a tour it was completely insane -- in 14 days we did 11 concerts in 10 different cities! On top of that, our first concert was literally one hour after we arrived, having been travelling for 26 hours by plane and coach! Perhaps that explains the half-crazed faces in these photographs...

what a pleasure to see your photographs of China. I started making notes of favorites but there were too many--got to mention, though, the lantern market in Guanghou, and in Shanwei the small street with pendants overhead and the happy children. Hohhot was very interesting, then the wonderful overview of the Great Wall.

Thanks for sharing your trip--it must be the grandest trip you've ever made? Your pictures are, in my opinion, what the photo gallery was meant to be rather than all the inane dock and system and set up photos it has become. But then I'm cynical.

Those kids in Shanwei were so sweet. They followed us around for about an hour, saying "hello" and "welcome to our school" and shaking our hands. One of them showed me his English textbook. They obviously don't get a lot of westeners in that town.

In the evening they crowded around the side gates of the concert hall like groupies -- a surreal sight. Sadly, I didn't see a single one of them in the audience. I suspect the ticket price (expensive even by western standards, something which really baffled me) was far more than they could have afforded.

PM me if you want full size copies of any of the photos, I'd be happy to oblige!

ieani, those photos were taken on a Pentax ME Super. Proper old school! Most of them were taken with the standard Pentax 50mm lens, a few of them with a (very average) Vivatar 28mm lens. The developers did a pretty good job of the scanning. I'm desparate to get a digital SLR, but I can't afford one at the moment... oh, the life of a student...

I'd be happy to email you full size copies of the photos you like, which you can use as desktop pictures. Just PM me with your email address.

One tip - if you go to markets, you are expected to haggle. You should aim to pay about 40% of the price that they ask for. Offer about 10-20% of the price and take it from there. I'm not kidding. If they don't just laugh at you, chances are they'll take what you're offering if you start to walk away. Don't feel guilty about this, the prices they quote you are vastly inflated (by their standards) because you are a tourist.

One tip - if you go to markets, you are expected to haggle. You should aim to pay about 40% of the price that they ask for. Offer about 10-20% of the price and take it from there. I'm not kidding. If they don't just laugh at you, chances are they'll take what you're offering if you start to walk away. Don't feel guilty about this, the prices they quote you are vastly inflated (by their standards) because you are a tourist.

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Damn that is cheap! That's about 11 times less than what a beer costs here! (3.80) Nice one for the haggling tips tips. I'll make sure to use them.

Nice pics. I like the "at the top" picture of the great wall...too bad that girl was in the way or that would have been an amazing picture (unless u plan for that)
I too am going to China in May for 2 week with my school, kinda like a mini study abroad.

My favourite picture is 'mother and child', because of the expressions on their faces, and the way the child is holding her mum's bag. It's just a shame that motorbike happened to pass exactly as I took the picture.

My favourite picture is 'mother and child', because of the expressions on their faces, and the way the child is holding her mum's bag. It's just a shame that motorbike happened to pass exactly as I took the picture.

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I actually like the juxtaposition with the motorbike. *shrug* Just me I suppose.

But yeah, my two favorite photos would be 'mother and child' and 'lonely boat.'

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